The Loss of a Mentor

Shuang (1963-2012)

While I was pregnant with Norah, I was called into my bosses office to take a call with his boss, on an unknown, but important topic.  The three of us had worked together for many years, at several companies, so I had some idea that something was up.  What I wasn’t prepared for then, and still am not today, was the seriousness of it all.

I first met Shuang in in the winter of 1998.  I had just moved to the Boston area to take a job with a company that was recently acquired by the Nortel Networks, then a large company I worked for at the time  My direct boss would be located in Toronto, and he was her boss at the time.  I’ll be honest, I was more than a little intimidated at the time – who were these guys who just sold their company for 290 million dollars?  I had not yet begun to understand the culture of a start up and the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the founders.  Adding to Shuang’s mystique was the fact that he spoke with  a strong Chinese accent and was difficult to understand, at least at first. 

Looking back, I’m not sure exactly when I realized how important he would come to be to me, but it was long before that fateful meeting when he told us he had Liver cancer, and things didn’t look good.  A week or so later, we had what we came to call a “Noodle conference”.  We met at a Chinese joint near where we first worked together.  Shuang always ordered something in Chinese for all of us that I was never entirely sure was actually on the menu – it was good, so what did it matter?  He didn’t look well, and he was quite serious – he wanted to talk through his treatment options – whether to try to remove the tumor and treat with chemo, or head straight for transplant.  At the time, I felt humbled that he would even want to include me in this life and death discussion.  In hindsight, I know he probably had this discussion with many others as well, and in a way, I think he did it as much for us, Rob and I, as he did for himself – not out of character for him. 

Shuang had a way of expressing things that cut to the essence, without coming off as abrupt or short.  A couple of my favorite examples was in 2004.  I was doing a lot of hiking and backpacking, and some friends were planning a trip to Kilimanjaro – which had been a dream of mine since seeing the movie “To the Roof of Africa”  several years earlier.  I was struggling whether or not to go – it was a lot of money and a good portion of my annual vacation allotment.  Over lunch, Shuang said, quite poignantly, “If not you, who? If not now, when?” – a phrase I’ve quoted often in the years since.  He was absolutely right, of course, within 18 months of my return, I met Matt, my husband.  Not long after came the mortgage and the kids and the house renovations – had I not gone then, it’s unlikely I would have ever gone, and missed one of the most memorable and mentally and physically hardest things I’ve ever done!  Another time, I was worried about a scheduled vacation conflicting with a somewhat fluid deadline at work, and he said to me “Don’t worry, go on vacation, the work will be here when you get back”    Wouldn’t you know it, he was right again!

Professionally, I we’ve been through some interesting times – mergers and acquisitions, a start-up that failed, and a lot of international politic-ing.  Through all of that I never saw him lose his cool or let his emotions get the better of him.  In fact, the only time I can think of seeing him emotionally distraught was at the failure of a start up – and mainly because he had let us, the employees, down.  I have learned so much from him – about how to be a Product Manager, how to dig for information and what to make of it, and most of all how to keep your integrity when things get “interesting”.

After a long battle, Shuang finally succumbed to the cancer on January 8, 2012.  To say the news shocked me is an understatement.   Even though losing the battle was obviously a possibility for some time, it still didn’t seem possible.  A world without Shuang doesn’t seem possible.  I still expect to get an email or an IM from him about some random thing… they have the internet in heaven right?  Cause that’s surely where he is. 

Rest in Peace Shaung.